That’s it, they’re all complete

Today was going to be a tough one. I’d planned a long (20km and approx 1200m of ascent) walk along the ridge running along the southern flanks of Crummock Water and Buttermere. This was to be my last 6 Wainwrights of 214.

I got up early and headed for Buttermere, parked up and left at 8.20am off on a long trudge along the track from Buttermere, past Scales and along the valley between Mellbreak and Great Borne.

It was drizzling and sometime raining and this really didn’t inspire me. However, I’d started and was meeting Liz at Honister so I’d got my work cut out to meet her for 3pm.

We got to Great Borne just after 10.30 I think, after quite a pull up out of the valley.

Great Borne summit with Red Pike and Starling Dodd beyond

And then it was on to Starling Dodd over easier ground

Starling Dodd summit with Red Pike in the cloud

On the ascent of Red Pike, the weather deteriorated and the snow came, a bit sleety, but perhaps a bit better than the rain lower down.

Red Pike in the cloud with a fresh layer of snow

The view wasn’t up to much, which was a shame, so we carried on to High Stile (which had a similar outlook).

￼High Stile in the cloud

There were some atmospheric views of some crags that I’d been on some years ago.

Grey Crag and Eagle Crag?

And then we traversed the top of Comb Crags to High Crag.

￼High Crag

The final Wainwright was in sight….

Haystacks just beyond Scarth Gap and SeatThat's it, the final one

And so it was. We’d finished our 214th Wainwright. It had taken just under 6 years and 10 months to complete. This last year we’ve done nearly 100.

We headed to Honister to meet Liz who’d kindly driven over to drive me back to my car at Buttermere, not before a few minutes contemplation by Innominate Tarn in memory of AW.

If anyone asks me why I’ve done them. The answer is simple but also complex:

3 thoughts on “That’s it, they’re all complete”

FANTASTIC Dave. Well done. I’m sorry we weren’t there to support you on your last Wainwright 😥 … however, I see from the pictures that no one else was quite as mad as you to be up on the fells yesterday!!!
Maybe we can support you on your last Wainwright of round 2? Will we have to wait 6 years for that and can you plan to finish in better weather? 😉